Mw.ir. A.M. Bakker-Zierikzee : Prebiotics and probiotics in infant nutrition

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19 Jan 2005 16:00
Unit: Wageningen University
Location: Aula (gebouw 362), Gen. Foulkesweg 1, Wageningen
Promotor: prof.dr.ir. F.J. Kok (Nutrition and Health)prof.dr. J. Bindels (Nutrition during Growth and Development)
Co Promotor: dr. J.J.M. Tolboom (AMC St. Radboud, Nijmegen)

 Breast fed infants suffer less from gastrointestinal infections than infants fed on infant formula. This might be partly explained by the typical composition of their intestinal microflora, which is dominated by bifidobacteria.
During the last two decades, many attempts have been made to mimic the intestinal flora of breast fed infants in formula fed infants. Prebiotics (non-digestible oligosaccharides) and probiotics (viable Bifidobacterium animalis) are novel concepts in the nuritional area that are used to selectively change the intestinal microflora and thus induce positive health benefits.
With two randomised, dubbel blind, intervention studies in infants, we demonstrated that infant formula containing a mixture of two non-digestible oligosaccharides (GOS and FOS) resulted in an intestinal flora, of which the composition and metabolic activity is more comparable to that found in breast fed infants than that of standard formula fed infants. In contrast, we showed that infants fed on infant formula containing only GOS or viable B. animalis have an intestinal microflora more comparable to that of infants fed on standard formula. Additionally, we found that the GOS/FOS formula (in contrast to GOS or the probiotic formula) resulted in a trend towards higher secretory Immunoglobulin A levels, which might protect the infant against certain pathogens.
We conclude that, although more research is needed to clarify the effects on hard clinical endpoints like frequency and duration of diarrhoea, it can be reasonably assumed that infants can have a health benefit from infant formula containing a mixture of GOS and FOS.
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